If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0

Techstars: Day 60 (I pledge allegiance…)

Today we had an afternoon offsite at Fried Frank[1] regarding expansion into the US. This was a bit of an eye opener for me. I was always aware that the whole tax law thing was a bit convoluted over there, but once you chuck in visas, employment law, and the litigious nature of doing business it just becomes a complete nightmare. In fact I spent most of the session thinking that it would be an ideal problem for Rainbird to solve since there is a lot of complex knowledge that you need to unlock if you’re thinking of expanding to America.

The key takeaway for me was that, as a SaaS business based out of the UK, we won’t be facing US tax implications. Apparently if we have American customers using our platform that’s running from The Cloud with the servers based in the US we’re golden, just as long as we don’t open an office out there. This is good because the changes to the tax laws in Europe are hard enough to understand without having to worry about a different continent on top of that.

Ben also did his second attempt at a demo day pitch at tonights All Hands meeting. It was definitely an improvement on last weeks, and we’re pleased we’re moving in the right direction, even if there is still a way to go. I’m filming these so Ben can review his performance, but also so that we can track the progress over the weeks towards the final pitch. I also have a rather fun idea for a quick video once we’re done that just highlights the progress being made.